R. Emmett Tyrrell, Jr.: Marijuana vs. Scotch and a Low IQ
Wow. How can a founder and editor-in-chief write something so ridiculously idiotic?
This is an anti-marijuana article presumably aimed at readers who never tried marijuana, never read anything about it, and never had any friends who used it.
Rather small target audience.
I’d take it apart, but Jacob Sullum has already done a fine job: Because Bob Tyrrell Prefers Scotch, Marijuana Should Be Banned
on John Walters and William Barr linked to Nazis: “More that might be useful, Mount Sinai researchers have identified a brain pathway that is affected by addictive drugs: 18-APR-2024–…researchers,…” Apr 18, 23:11
on John Walters and William Barr linked to Nazis: “More on opiate receptors. I had a physician who recommended Salvia Divinorum. He later asked me to keep his recommendation…” Apr 17, 11:40 on John Walters and William Barr linked to Nazis: “I’ve applied what little mental skills I have to the study of cannabinoid G-coupled protein receptors like CB1 and CB2…” Apr 16, 16:35 on John Walters and William Barr linked to Nazis: “University of Leipzig researchers examine the molecular mechanisms of the opioid receptors and their different functions: 12-APR-2024 — Drugs that…” Apr 14, 17:36 on John Walters and William Barr linked to Nazis: “Researchers at Dartmouth College reveal Cannabis receptors are among receptors implicated in the way the brain regulates emotions: 3-APR-2024 …”Our…” Apr 6, 09:59 on John Walters and William Barr linked to Nazis: “Corrected links: University of Basel: Liberalization of medical marijuana and mental health in the USA Health Economics Policy and Law:…” Apr 4, 19:24 on John Walters and William Barr linked to Nazis: “Swiss researchers investigated what effects if any medicinal marijuana had on mental health in the United States. Their results show…” Apr 4, 19:21 on John Walters and William Barr linked to Nazis: “Interesting question. All of it played a role. I think religious differences and conflict are the main motivators behind drug…” Mar 31, 23:17
it’s simpletons like tyrrell that tell me that i would be foolish to let the likes of him make my decisions for me. without cannabis i would probably be dead already. prohibition has been a mindfuck from the get go. that’s why i refuse to obey the marijuana laws.
I think Tyrell may have “considered” more than one “suave scotch and soda” before writing this absurd piece of tosh.
I’ve been sitting here trying to work out all the things wrong with that article.
Then I realised there is only ONE THING wrong with it:
It’s written by an idiot.
Would you believe a drunken idiot?
That comment is offensive to us drunks that can handle our booze and whom are articulate 🙂
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My comment on this article.
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OK, fine attack cannabis. Whatever.
Name one good thing that has come from this or any prohibition, (as opposed to mass incarceration, etc.), and I’ll be slightly more inclined to listen, but otherwise, this is the same old prohibitionist spew that we’ve all heard so many times before: my vice is better than your vice. Nah, nah, nah, nah, nah, nah.
Gimme a break. It’s a little hard to believe we haven’t got past this yet.
Yep, that’s one idiotic article, and Sullum tore it up pretty good. Looking forward to the ridicule that is sure to follow from all around the net.
One factor I haven’t seen raised yet — laughably erroneous math aside, Tyrrell’s ridiculously stupid argument about higher-potency marijuana exposes his complete ignorance about even his own preferred drug of choice: After all, Scotch is basically distilled beer. It starts out as a very much beer-like wart, and the distilling process increases the alcohol concentration from beer’s 5-8% to at least 40%. And that, for the math-challenged Tyrrell, amounts to “at least five times more powerful” — exactly the argument he used against the drug he wants to prevent anyone else from choosing.
The entire article is so bad, so full of long-debunked nonsense, so self-contradictory, so ridiculously and obviously wrong to even the most uninformed reader, that I’m almost inclined to believe that it almost HAS to be a poe. But I think Pete has it right — Tyrrell’s aiming at a specific target audience with this, and probably doesn’t care what those who know he’s full of shit think. Thing is, as Pete points out, that audience is TINY, probably MUCH smaller than Tyrrell imagines.
“Oh! Snap!” – Gregory House, M.D.
This thinking stuff is hard. I guess that is why guys like Tyrell, Jr. do so little of it.
R. Emmett Tyrrell, Jr. became editor-in-chief of the American Spectator because he thinks Dixie shall rise again, not because he’s a drug expert.
He might know something about Scotch. I like Scotch, especially some of the unique, single-malt varieties. Mixing marijuana and Scotch is somewhat pointless, since you’re not going anywhere at that point. Individually, each can provide a pleasant experience suitable enough to precipitate stress and heart disease in any Puritan.
The author of “The Death of Liberalism”, Mr. Tyrrell, needs to do what Bill Buckley did, which is to sail out past the ten-mile limit and light one up. More than likely Emmett Tyrell will ask the same question Buckley did: “…why the f#@k is this sh&t illegal?”
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Every time I read that story about Bill Buckley going out past the whatever mile limit it was (it has been substantially increase subsequently…is it 100 or 200 miles now?) in order to be in compliance with the law I wonder how the cannabis got out there with him. If he carried it, he broke the law. If he arranged to meet someone to provide it, he broke the law…what, was it wild cannabis that grew up on a bouy, the seeds carried there in a seagull’s digestive tract? Perhaps he was just sailing around and bumped into someone who lived out past the limit on a grow houseboat?
At great personal expense, WFB had it shipped by boat directly from Honduras. The boat studiously avoided US ocean territory and met WFB in the ocean at a predetermined location where WFB essentially became a hippie…. for a day anyway.
At least that’s what I heard…. (snicker)
here is a good rant from cocktailhag on firedoglake:http://tinyurl.com/obubz66 one commenter points out that if you let the ptb tell you what you cannot do, the next step is to tell you what you must do. like, get in that box car, doper.
Is anyone else watching the 550 Simpson’s episodes on FXX..every Simpson’s ever shown for the next 5 days?
I am waiting for some channel to do every Gunsmoke.
Rand Paul Takes Bold Stand on Medical Marijuana: Protect Its Users from Federal Law
http://tinyurl.com/k5f8sdh
Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) filed an amendment to protect users and purveyors of medical marijuana from federal law on July 24.
If approved, doctors, patients and growers in states where medical marijuana is legal will not be arrested and prosecuted by federal authorities for marijuana possession, cultivation or distribution, as reported by the Huffington Post. Currently, anyone in the U.S. can be imprisoned for up to three years for simple possession. Those growing or selling it can be imprisoned for life. “snip”
I wonder if it will die in committee,,as usual.
Think of it as ‘sour grapes’; Tyrrell and his demographic cohort denied themselves (and did their damnedest to deny others) the amazing properties of the cannabis plant for their entire lives.
And now that they are suffering from maladies (like alcohol-derived brain cell destruction) that said cannabis could have ameliorated, are now realizing what they have passed up for the sake of wearing a ‘merit badge’ of (what they think is) ideological and cultural purity.
A ‘merit badge’ that those who are replacing them in the population consider the equivalent of a dunce cap…and refuse to wear one, or associate with those that do.
Tyrrell’s cohort is shrinking, and that means that fewer and fewer will subscribe to their beliefs, and thus will not be in a position to impose those beliefs upon the rest of us.
Meaning that, since they won’t have us to kick around anymore, they’ll have to find other outlets for their innate viciousness; may Deity help their family members and housepets…if they aren’t already being abused.
Sounds like Mr Tyrrell was in the room with Nixon and Linkletter. Surprised we didn’t hear him on the tape. Perhaps he’d passed out from to much fine scotch?
Even putting aside the ridiculous and false premises on which it’s based, the “alcohol-is-different-because-you-can-drink-it-for-the-taste” argument is just bizarre. “Oh sure, on the one hand, booze is a toxic, highly-addictive, and violence-promoting drug, the use of which is responsible for an estimated 88,000 deaths in the U.S. each year, but on the other hand I like the way it tastes.”
The argument also puts the prohibitionists who are dumb enough to make it in the awkward position of defending a drug’s use based on what can only be considered one of its “recreational” benefits — benefits that in any other drug context they reject as somehow illegitimate. You say you drink scotch because you like the “taste,” Mr. Tyrell? So, in other words, your use of that drug provides you with a subjective experience that you find pleasurable? Well, shit, what do you know? That’s the same reason I choose to enjoy cannabis. What do you say we agree to let each other enjoy our respective leisure activities without either of us pointing a gun at the other?
One of the ironic things about this is that I’m also a scotch drinker, and I want marijuana legalized so I can have the same types of choices with pot that I have with single-malt scotches. Just like I have a scotch that’s just right for a mellow night home alone and a different one for a night of socializing, I want high end cannabis choices.
That reminds me, my bottle of Oban is empty…
Great read. Funniest thing I’ve read this year!
Freedom includes the right to one’s Drug-of-Choice as long as it’s used responsibly.
Democracy Deserves Cannabis.
Hippie Chicks Rock!
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The Linkletter Excuse is never going to die. Perhaps the most lame piece of nonsense ever regurgitated by the sycophants of prohibition. 88,000 American deaths annually, 15 million practicing drinking alcohol addicts, more than 10 million who know that they’re drunks but remain abstinent because they know that, god knows how many billions upon billions of dollars in property damage, proven to cause brain damage so severe over time that there’s a not insignificant number of brain dead people drooling all over themselves in long term care facilities on the taxpayer’s nickle, but hey, that’s no problem because there are people that like to tour wineries but spit rather than swallow.
I’ve got to admit that one of the vast number of prohibitionist idiocies that annoy me to no end is their apparent belief that all cannabis is fungible. Anyone with more than a passing knowledge of our community knows that we’ve got our fair share of reefer snobs AND resin scrapers. I think it’s a given that post re-legalization there will be people who are the equivalent of wine snobs touring cannabis grows doing nothing other than tasting, both professionals and amateurs.
People do not need alcoholic beverages in order to drink without getting drunk.
Tyrell, Jr. has always been an elitist. I’m surprised he hasn’t had himself photographed wearing a top hat and monocle.
because
a) we are all such devotees of American Spectator
and b) his initials. ET Jr.… 🙂 he called home and got the “this number has been disconnected” message.
The way I remember the Linkletter trope working was that if anyone refuted it he had just confessed to being a) a criminal and b) a drug addict and therefore couldn’t be belived.